I desire to acknowledge receipt of your memorandum 38/104/92 of
19th November, 1947 [1], on the subject of a request from the
Republican Government of Indonesia for landing rights in
Australia.

2. The attitude of the Australian Government towards the
Republican Government of Indonesia cannot be finally determined
until a settlement has been reached in the current dispute between
the Netherlands and the Republican Government. As you are aware,
the situation in Indonesia was brought before the United Nations
Security Council, which has set up a Committee of Good Offices
(with Australia as one of its three members) to investigate all
aspects of the dispute and to assist both parties in reaching a
satisfactory settlement. The Committee's investigations are still
proceeding. In the meantime the Australian Government, while
having in practice accorded de facto recognition to the Republican
Government [2], is not in a position to contemplate the granting
of de jure recognition.

3. Having regard to these factors, it would scarcely be
appropriate for the Australian Government to enter into formal
negotiations with the Republican Government for the purpose of
concluding, for example, a bilateral agreement for reciprocal air
transport services. For the same reasons it is felt that it would
be premature of the Australian Government at this stage to take
any active steps to sponsor the Republican Government's endeavour
to secure membership of the International Civil Aviation
Organization.

4. Whilst we have told Republican representatives informally that
we do not think it would serve any useful purpose to sponsor their
request for membership of I.C.A.0. at the present time, we would
like to help them overcome any urgent communications difficulties
which may be hampering them administratively. It is for this
reason that we think that, without going to the length of
negotiating a bilateral agreement at this time, the Australian
Government might be prepared to grant on application landing
rights in Australia for individual Indonesian aircraft.